Databases in Networked Information Systems

Information systems in healthcare and public utility services depend on comp- ing infrastructures. Many research e?orts are being made in related areas, such as wireless computing (e. g. , Auto-ID Laboratories, and projects at MIT), W- based computing, and information accesses by Web users. Government agencies in many countries plan to launch facilities in education, healthcare and infor- tion support as a part of e-government initiatives. In this context, information interchange management has become an active research ?eld. A number of new opportunities have evolved in design and modeling based on new computing needs of users. Database systems play a central role in supporting networked information systems for access and storage management aspects. The4thInternationalWorkshoponDatabasesinNetworkedInformationS- tems (DNIS 2005) was held on March 28¿30, 2005 at the University of Aizu in Japan. The workshop program included research contributions, and invited c- tributions. A view of research activity in Information Interchange Management and related research issues was provided by the session on this topic. The invited contribution was contributed by Dr. Umeshwar Dayal. The workshop session on Web Data Management Systems had invited papers by Prof. Elisa Bertino, Prof. Masahito Hirakawa, and Prof. William I. Grosky. The two sessions on Networked Information Systems included invited contributions by Prof. Sushil Jajodia, Dr. Cyrus Shahabi, Prof. Divyakant Agrawal and Dr. Harumi Kuno. I would like to thank the members of the Program Committee for their support and all authors who considered DNIS 2005 in making research contributions.